


and the thieves are left to drown

by cabinfever



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Ignis gets revenge, M/M, Noct gets beaten up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 03:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13604310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinfever/pseuds/cabinfever
Summary: Lestallum is a risk. It always is.After a trip to the market gone awry, and with Noct injured, Ignis searches for a way to settle the score.





	and the thieves are left to drown

**Author's Note:**

> written for ignoct week day 2: "burn the world for you"
> 
> title taken from "it has begun" by starset.

Lestallum is a risk. It always is.

But Noct had insisted, and Prompto had complained, and even Gladio had started dropping hints that he wouldn’t mind a shower and a real bed after their long stint of hunts and camping. It’s hard enough for Ignis to say no to any of them, but any combination of them is more than enough to make him crack. They have the money to spare, though, so to Lestallum they go.

Ignis can already feel the sweat beading at the back of his neck. It’s not just the oppressive heat of Lestallum, though that certainly does contribute to it. His hackles, as it were, are up. Maybe it’s the abundance of imperial flags flying as they emerge from the tunnel into the city. Maybe it’s just the exhaustion of too many days spent hunting and driving with little time to rest. Regardless, he doesn’t like it. They’ve had too much luck for far too long.

They make it to the Leville with little trouble. They get a room to share - Prompto complains, but Ignis silences him with a glare - and dump their baggage in it. Gladio disappears to go talk to Holly down by the Exineris plant, and Prompto disappears out onto the balcony to take photos. He’ll probably be scrambling along the roof by the next time Ignis dares to check on him.

Ignis changes into his paler, casual outfit, shrugging out of his heavy Crownsguard uniform and hanging it carefully in one of the hotel’s closets. He frowns at the elbow of the jacket; it’ll need a repair. That, and Noct’s button. All the better, then, that he’s trading his black and purple and red for pale blue and brown. He doesn’t want to wear his jacket out further. 

For a moment, he almost considers just wearing it anyway. He’s not in the mood to do the mending tonight. But he sighs, and he turns from the closet, hoping that perhaps something new will come up and distract him from the task.

He emerges from the bathroom, carefully arranging his hair into place as he goes. Gods, but this heat is disastrous. At least his hair isn’t wilting like Prompto’s. Ignis gives up after a few determined attempts and fetches his wallet from the table beside the bed that he and Noct share. Noct’s there already, sprawled on his back with his phone held up just below his chin.

“Care to join me on a shopping excursion?”

Noct looks away from his phone. “Where?”

“Just the marketplace. I’m in need of some ingredients for dinner tonight.”

“Anything good on the menu tonight?”

“Come with me, and you may be able to pick for yourself.”

That does the trick: Noct swings his legs off the bed and pushes himself to his feet. He hadn’t even bothered to take off his boots before getting onto the bed, and Ignis almost says something, but he supposes the damage has been done. He brushes off his hands on his pants and asks, “Shall we?”

Ignis studies him carefully and shakes his head. “A more casual outfit today, I think.” 

Noct rolls his eyes but turns around and digs through his bag, shouldering off the jacket of his fatigues. He pulls on his paler gray jacket, forgoing the vest. It’s a good idea; the heat is oppressive even in their hotel room. Noct trades his uniform pants and combat boots for dark jeans and sneakers, then looks down at himself. He sighs.

“This looks dumb.”

“It looks charming,” Ignis assures him, smiling. He walks up to Noct and brushes a lock of hair away from his wide blue eyes. “Better yet, it’s safe.”

“Lestallum is safe.”

“For the most part, sure. But I fear that our recent raid on that imperial base will have placed the city’s keepers on high alert.” Ignis frowns down at the outfit. “You’ll overheat if you keep wearing that shirt,” he warns. “Black absorbs the sunlight, you know.”

Noct shrugs. “And I’ll sweat all over another shirt if I switch out. It’s just shopping, Ignis.”

Ignis almost convinces him otherwise. Almost. But he’s tired, and he just wants to get some ingredients so they don’t starve tonight, and he has to admit that Noctis always looks his best in black. So he relents, and he says, “Come along, then. We haven’t all day.”

They don’t even make it to the market before someone stops them.

There are officers out here today, decked out in brassy armor and wearing long capes. Ignis wrinkles his nose; he doesn’t envy them. In this heat, they must be boiling in that armor. Faintly, he’s reminded of crustaceans, and he briefly contemplates steaming some seafood for dinner tonight.  _ Maybe if the price is right,  _ he thinks to himself.

Ignis thanks the gods that they’d had the good sense to change their clothes. He keeps his head down as one of the soldiers approaches them, though, praying to any astrals that are listening that they won’t be found out. This is the last thing they need; Lestallum is supposed to be safe.

This officer is younger. That makes it worse. The young ones are cruel. 

“What’s this?” the officer asks, and he pokes Noct in the chest, hard.

Ignis’s heart sinks. The shirt. He’s still wearing his uniform shirt. In the brutal sunlight of Lestallum, the glossy skulls shine out from the darkness of the fabric. Ignis would normally think them beautiful. Now, he’s cold with something edging towards fear.

“A black shirt?” the officer sneers, stalking around Noct. “Supporting the fucking Lucians, are you?”

Noct shakes his head, still staring down at his shoes. “No, sir,” he mumbles.

Ignis’s blood boils. His mind snarls,  _ You would dare speak thus to the king?  _ But he can’t do anything. He can’t do a thing if he wants Noct to stay safe. He can only sit here; he can only wait and hope that Niflheim doesn’t recognize the face of Lucis’s lost prince.

The officer steps closer, casting a shadow across Noct’s frame, swallowing him in darkness. He bares his teeth in an ugly grin. “Because it sure looks like that’s a skull on that shirt.”

Noct’s lips pull, just a little, into something like an answering sneer.

_ No,  _ Ignis thinks.  _ No, Noct, don’t- _

“I’m sorry,” Noct mutters instead of whatever outburst Ignis was expecting. There’s not nearly enough deference in his tone; there’s no question about exactly how much Noct hates this imperial soldier. 

The officer leans in close to Noct, baring his teeth beside Noct’s ear. “Say that again, Lucian filth.”

Ignis wants to close his eyes. He can’t watch Noct do this to himself. He can’t watch this officer make a mockery of the king. 

Noct says, through gritted teeth, “I’m sorry.”

Then he gets punched.

His breath rushes out of him in a cross between a wheeze and a shout, pained and shocked. His eyes fly wide, bright blue, and he doubles over, coughing around surprise and agony.

The officer holds Noct by one shoulder; his armored fist is still buried in the folds of fabric at Noct’s abdomen. He pats Noct’s cheek; he grins.

“You didn’t say  _ sir.” _

“No!” Ignis cries out, lunging forward, but something catches him across the chest with surprising strength, holding him back. He looks down frantically only to see the armored arm of another Niflheim officer holding him back. The metal of the armor is cold through the fabric of his shirt, even in the oppressive Lestallum heat.

“You’re staying right here, Four Eyes,” a voice growls in his ear. “You get to see what happens to people who act like there’s still a war for them to lose.”

Ignis struggles and yells, but there’s no words that could express his desperation. There’s only panic and the constant stream of  _ Noct Noct Noct  _ in his head, taking over eveyr instinct. He almost, almost reaches for his daggers. He almost calls up the power of the Crystal and the enchantments he’s bound to his blades. The flamebound ones, to match his rage. He’d burn this entire city to the ground if that’s what it would take to stop this.

He can’t. He’d only expose them, and then the might of Niflheim would fall on their heads.

The officer pats Noct’s cheek once more and then turns his open palm into a fist. His armored knuckles slam into the space around Noct’s eye, knocking him flat down onto the ground. He follows up with a foot to Noct’s ribs.

Noct cries out.

Ignis does too.

“What’s all this?”

_ Oh, thank the gods.  _

Ignis doesn’t think he’s ever been quite so relieved to see an imperial captain’s armor.

The soldier holding Ignis lets go and shoves him away. Ignis stumbles towards Noct, hardly hearing the mocking “Go take care of the little princess, then.”

He’s glad they don’t know how close they are to the truth of it.

Ignis drops to his knees at Noct’s side as soon as the other officers’ attention is diverted. “Noct,” he murmurs, bending down to cover as much of him as he can. “Noct, are you okay?”

Noct blinks slowly up at him. His mouth is smeared with his own blood, stark against the usual perfection of his skin. “Uh.”

Ignis snaps his fingers in front of Noct’s eyes. He can’t afford to be gentle right now; his blood is rushing in his ears and every instinct of his is screaming  _ take him and run run run- _

“Noct!” he hisses, still quiet. They can’t hear Noct’s name. If they do...he’s not sure what they’ll do, but now he has an idea. “Are you okay?” he repeats urgently.

“I-”

“Look how pathetic,” one of the soldiers sneers behind him. “Isn’t that so, Captain?”

“Captain,” the other one says, and his armored boot lands in Noct’s abdomen. Noct bites back a grunt of pain and clenches down on Ignis’s hands. “This Lucian scum is wearing the sigil of the old kings.”

“Is that so?” The captain smirks down at Ignis and Noct. “Skulls? A bold choice in the imperial city of Lestallum.”

Ignis glares up at the captain. “We don’t have much more to wear,” he spits.  _ “Sir.” _

“That so?” 

“Niflheim helps those who help themselves,” the captain tells him. Ignis’s skin crawls at the oily, patronizing tone. “Do yourself a favor and help this one off the ground. And get some new clothes.”

Ignis presses his lips together against his impending snarl of rage. Instead, he forces a neutral, submissive expression onto his face and nods. “Thank you,” he mutters. “Sir.”

The captain smiles, and the two officers chuckle darkly from beside him. One of them spits one last  _ “Scum,”  _ before his companion punches him on the arm and leads him away by the side of their captain. They saunter off, chuckling among themselves, not sparing Noct a second glance.

Ignis watches them go.

He won’t forget their faces.

When he’s confident, they’ve gone, he turns back to Noctis. “Oh, Noct,” he groans, running a careful hand along Noct’s cheek. Noct’s lip is split and swelling up, and there’s the promise of a bruise blooming alongside one of his eyes. Ignis is sure his ribs and stomach will be a mess of black and blue come morning.

“That-” Noct pauses, gasps around what must be pain, and continues, “that sucked.”

Ignis pulls him carefully to his feet. “Where does it hurt?” he asks gently, ducking so he can sling Noct’s arm over his shoulders. He takes Noct’s answering groan as enough of a diagnosis and murmurs, “We’ll need curatives.”

“The groceries-”

“Noct, we’re not getting groceries. We’re getting you home.”

Noct makes a quiet, disgusted noise, but he lets Ignis drag him towards the Leville nonetheless. “There’s no home. They burned it all.”

Ignis winces. “I know,” he says quietly. “I know.”

When they get back to the hotel, Ignis carefully sits Noct down on the edge of their bed, firmly pressing a hand to Noct’s knee to signal that he should stay. He doubts that Noct would have moved anyway; he can see it in the way that he winces with every breath. “This is worse than I thought,” he says aloud, rummaging through the armiger for a potion and some gauze and tissues. They don’t have much in the department of sterile medical equipment; this will have to do.

Ignis sends a quick text to Gladio and Prompto:  _ Noct hurt. Imperials. We weren’t found out. In hotel tending to him. _

He turns back to Noct when he’s retrieved everything he can manage, reaching for Noct’s face with a damp cloth. Noct turns his face away with a small exhale of effort; Ignis follows him, carefully wiping away the dust and blood that have caked themselves onto Noct’s cheeks. Noct pulls away again and reaches to hold onto Ignis’s wrist.

“I’m fine, Specs.”

“Stop making excuses, Noct. Nobody else is here.” Ignis gently holds Noct’s chin, turning his face this way and that. “They hurt you.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“You shouldn’t have to.” 

Noct shrugs.

“You’ll have a scar here for a bit,” Ignis mutters, carefully wiping the blood from Noct’s split lip. “The potions won’t heal it, but it’ll fade with time.”

“Your hands are shaking, Specs.”

“Never mind that.”

“Ignis.”

“I’m fine,” he snaps.

Noct recoils. His eyes go wide. “Ignis,” he says softly. 

Ignis reels his desperate panic and hateful rage back in, settling it back under the thick veneer of the king’s advisor. “Apologies,” he says softly. “This encounter...it’s left me shaken, Noct. If not even Lestallum is safe-”

“Nowhere is safe, Specs.”

“I’ll make it safe,” Ignis swears. No matter the cost. Nobody who lays a hand on Noct deserves to live. He’d burn Niflheim to ashes if he could; he’d burn the whole world for Noct if that’s what it took to keep him safe. Carefully, he wraps Noct’s fingers around a potion and helps him crush it. The magic washes over their interlaced fingers, dissolving across Noct’s skin. The worst of the redness disappears from his wounds, and his breathing seems to come easier, so that’s a relief, at least.

Noct blinks at him, slow and lethargic in his pain and in the Lestallum heat. “Ignis,” he murmurs, but he never gets the chance to finish.

The hotel room door flies open, and Gladio and Prompto are there in the doorway, wide-eyed and panting.

“Noct!” Prompto cries.

“What happened?” Gladio asks, rushing up to them. He grabs Noct by the shoulders carefully, studying his face with wide amber eyes. He looks to Ignis. “Iggy, what the hell?”

“Imperial officers.”

“What?”

Ignis sighs. “We weren’t recognized, thankfully.”

“There’s nothing to be fucking thankful for, Ignis!” Gladio snaps. “Look at him!”

“I’m fine,” Noct grouses.

“No, you’re not,” Ignis and Gladio tell him in unison.

Prompto shakes his head. “Dude, you’re a mess. You look worse than the time when that bulette rolled over your  _ everything.” _

“Thanks, dude.”

“Being honest here.”

Gladio throws his hands up and groans, “This is impossible. What are we going to do?”

“We lay low,” Ignis says quietly, applying a balm to Noct’s swollen skin. “That’s all we can do.”

He’s always been the best at lying.

Dinner is miserable.

Noct barely picks at his meal. Ignis doesn’t blame him; it’s a weak soup, whipped up from whatever meager supplies they’d had left in storage. Gladio and Prompto, bless them, put on brave faces and quietly praise the cooking. Ignis loves them for it, of course, and he even offers them a small smile, but he’s not really thinking about the meal.

The whole time, Ignis plans.

That night, when the others have long since fallen asleep, Ignis steps quietly across the room and slips on his shoes.

Part of him regrets not asking the others to accompany him, but he fears that they’d only make things more complicated. Besides, he’s fully capable of a hunt like this. He tugs on his gloves carefully, lost in the flashing images of Noct’s face as he lay on the ground at the mercy of the imperials.

He catches a glimpse of himself in the shadowed mirror, lit only by the cityscape outside and the faint glow of moonlight. He looks...composed. The same. He looks like a soldier. Ignis frowns and reaches up to his hair, running his fingers through it. In the Lestallum heat, and after the day they’ve had, it falls easily enough from where he’s gelled it, tumbling down across his forehead. Already, it makes him look younger. It reminds him that he’s hardly older than a teenager, forced into importance by the destruction of everything beloved and familiar.

By Niflheim.

His fists clench on reflex, and his foreign reflection’s eyes flash with fury.

_ Niflheim. _

He walks carefully across the room, looking once more at the sleeping form of Noct. There are bruises beginning to bloom across his pale skin, lit into cool colors by the filtered moonlight. The sight of them twists Ignis’s heart painfully and sends guilt to shiver down his back like ice. If he’d done more, he could have prevented this. If he’d left Noct in this room, he could have prevented this.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and he bends down to kiss an unmarred part of Noct’s smooth cheek. “I’m going to make it right.”

He sets his glasses down on the bedside table. His vision is fine without them. Besides, with the way he wants this night to go, he expects to be up close and personal. Without them, he’s anonymous.

One more glance before he leaves: Noct’s taken over the entirety of the bed, and Gladio and Prompto are hopelessly overlapped on the other mattress. They’re peaceful. Ignis intends to keep them that way.

Nobody hears the door click open and shut as he goes.

And then he’s anonymous, and Lestallum is his.

He has work to do.

It doesn’t take him long to work out the patrols of the Niflheim soldiers through the darkened streets of Lestallum. From what he’s heard from their informants here in Lestallum, these officers are on alert, but not nearly to the degree that they’d be organized about it. That makes things easier.

Ignis slips between the alleys and hidden doorways of the city, searching the features of the soldiers from where they poke out of their ugly, brassy shells. The lion of Niflheim looks ugly on their hideous armor. It’s an affront to Lucis. They’re abominations on Lucian soil. Ignis is determined to help wipe their kind out. For a bit, he despairs, worried that he’s gotten his shifts wrong, and that he’s missed his chance entirely. But then-

Ah.

There he is.

It’s the captain from before, leaning against a pillar at the edge of town, lazily watching late-night drinkers stumbling through the emptying streets. There’s not a magitek trooper in sight, either. No, the captain must be too proud to keep the company of the empire’s pet robots.

His loss.

Ignis collects himself for a moment, pausing to ensure that he looks appropriately disheveled. In the darkness of his hiding spot, he schools his face into an expression of panicked desperation. He thinks of Noct, and of the blood on his lips, and the feeling solidifies into realness. Yes, that’s convincing enough. Ignis takes one breath, then another. Then he goes lurching out into the street, making a frantic beeline for the captain. “Sir!” he cries, stumbling up to him.

“Halt!” the captain calls. “What do you want?”

“Please, sir,” he begs, widening his eyes. Two decades of diplomacy have taught him how to lie, and he knows he looks every bit the part: desperate and skinny and pale, hair a mess and clothes half-untucked. “Please, it’s the Lucians!”

The captain’s eyebrows raise, and he leans over to spit on the ground to his side. “Too many loyalists today,” he growls. “It’s pathetic.” Still, he rises to his full height and adjusts his armor. “Come on, then. I don’t have all night.”

Ignis smiles breathlessly. “Thank you, sir,” he pants, and he points down a darkened alley. “This way - quickly!”

He darts off down the alley, pleased when the telltale clinking of armor lets him know that the captain is following. Heavy, metallic footsteps ring between the cramped walls of the alley. Ignis keeps leading, calling over his shoulder that they’re getting close. And they are, in a way, but not to the Lucians. Only one. Only Ignis.

At the end of a dark, dark path, in the shadow of a condemned building on the outskirts of Lestallum, Ignis stops in his tracks. The footsteps draw louder behind him; he can hear the captain’s labored breathing as he tries to catch up to Ignis.

“Where-”

Gods, it’s too easy.

Ignis whirls when he can feel the foul heat of the captain’s breath against the back of his neck. He slams his elbow into the officer’s neck, carrying through with the momentum to force the man back against the slimy bricks of the alleyway. With his other hand, he summons one of his daggers, holding it aloft in the meager light of the moon that drips between the buildings.

“Captain,” he sneers. “You’re not worth a title.”

“What is the meaning-”

Ignis silences him with a blade between his ribs. Noct didn’t get the mercy of explaining himself; neither will this scum.

The captain’s eyes fly wide with disbelief, with shock; with agony.

Good.

Ignis leans in close to his face and smiles. “No one will miss you,” he hisses. “Nobody will mourn.”

The captain clutches at Ignis’s shirt with a shaking hand. He chokes around what must be some sort of plea, but all that comes out of his mouth is blood.

“The Lucians own Lestallum,” Ignis tells him quietly, calmly, watching the light fade from the captain’s watery blue eyes. “The  _ king  _ owns Lestallum, and he owns Lucis, and you will never lay a hand on anything of his ever again.”

The captain gurgles and chokes once more, but Ignis is good at what he does. As surely as the sun rises, and as surely as Noct is king, the Niflheim captain breathes his last. 

It’s satisfying.

Ignis drags him through the shadows, down empty alleyways and across the street between the faint yellow glow of the late-night streetlights. He dumps the captain’s body over a neglected guardrail to get rid of him. He doesn’t deserve a burial; his body goes tumbling down onto the rocks that lead down into Taelpar Crag.

The daemons will take care of his body.

For a moment afterwards, Ignis just stares quietly down at where the body no doubt has come to rest. There’s something burning in his chest. Maybe it’s vindication; maybe it’s pride. Some of it feels like guilt, though.

Ignis shakes his head to clear his mind. He has work to do.

Ignis finds one of the other two officers off-duty, stumbling through the streets in pursuit of some other drunk young man. Ignis intercepts him instead. He wraps his arms around the officer’s skinny shoulders, ignoring for a moment the hatred in his heart, and he lures him into the shadows with whispered promises of favors and lust.

It’s too easy.

Over the cliff he goes.

The last soldier he finds is the one who punched Noct first. 

That one-

He saves that one for later.

 

\---

Noct insists on going outside again.

“I know you hate not having good ingredients. Besides, we’ll need them once we skip town.”

Ignis trails him out of the door of the Leville, quietly resigned already. At least Noct is wearing his full casual outfit today. Minus the vest, of course. 

“Surprised nobody’s tracked us down yet,” Noct mumbles, kicking a discarded can around the alleyway.

Ignis blinks, perfectly neutral. “Just our luck?” he suggests.

“Sounds like something Prompto would say.” Noct glances over at him. “Besides, our luck is shit.”

“Noct.”

“It’s true.”

“You sound like Gladio.”

“No, I sound like I just got beat up by Nifs.” Noct stops in his tracks, stepping into Ignis’s path. “Or did you forget?”

Ignis stares into Noct’s eyes, finding the frustration brewing there, and he loves him all the more for it. He takes Noct’s face in his hands and kisses him softly, chastely, in the middle of the alleyway. “Never,” he murmurs when he breaks away again, savoring the few heartbeats when Noct’s eyes remain shut, committing the sight of his long eyelashes to memory. “And I stand by my promise to keep you safe. I swear to you that I am still cautious.”

“But-”

“However,” Ignis continues smoothly, “I thought some optimism wouldn’t be unwelcome.”

Noct opens his eyes; they’re beautiful even with the faint purple and red ringing the delicate bones of his brow and cheek. Ignis thinks, absently, that if Noct were to summon an astral right now, the red in his eyes would make him look all the fiercer. “No,” he agrees, “it wouldn’t.”

Ignis smiles.

 

\---

 

Ignis is stretching when Gladio brings it up.

He’s perfectly comfortable in their shared bedroom, easing old aches out of his muscles while he still can. He wants to be in the best condition he can be before they trek out into the wilderness where the hard stone of the havens forces his muscles into the least comfortable arrangements. As much as he loathes the heat of Lestallum, Ignis has to admit that it’s preferable to the bone-deep chill and wetness of camping out in some miserably uninhabited part of Cleigne. They’re reaching the end of their stay, and he’s determined to get one last stretch out of it before he gets back in the Regalia and takes them off towards Caem.

Gladio, meanwhile, is resting, which is unusual as far as he’s concerned. Ignis has known him to read novels while jogging before; he’s never just sitting still. But here he is, and it’s just him and Ignis in the room right now, and somehow Ignis just knows that something’s wrong. Well. Maybe not wrong, but he knows that whatever Gladio is sitting still for, he’s not going to like it.

“Someone’s finding bodies,” Gladio comments, and he plucks one of Ignis’s daggers from the armiger, using it to pick at his nails. “Out on the cliffs, not far from the outlook. Beyond the lights.”

Ignis frowns and summons Gladio’s greatsword in response, propping it up in the wood floor and bracing himself on it for a more adventurous stretch. “How unfortunate.”

“The authorities-“

“Have it handled, I’m sure.”

Gladio scoffs, “No, actually. They  _ were  _ the authorities. Nif officers.”

Ignis raises an eyebrow and sinks carefully to the floor, relishing the relief when something shifts in his hip and allows him to dip into a split. The tug at his hamstrings is entirely welcome. “Is that so?”

Gladio asks, quietly, “Do you enjoy it?”

So the game’s up, then.

Ignis pauses in his stretch, half bowed across one of his legs in a long arc. “What do you want me to say?” he asks in return. He meets Gladio’s eyes across the room, challenging his bright amber gaze with a steady sureness. There’s no guilt in his heart. He did what he did to protect Noct; to avenge his abuse.

Gladio snorts. “Something like that, I suppose,” he replies. 

“Will you tell him?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t.”

Gladio twirls Ignis’s dagger between his fingers. “It’s bold of you,” he says.

“Does Prompto know?”

“He’s smarter than you give him credit for.” Gladio scratches at his beard. “But he wouldn’t just blurt it out.”

Ignis rolls his shoulder, relishing the faint  _ pop  _ of relief deep in the joint. “See to it that he doesn’t.”

Gladio asks, thunder-deep, “And if I don’t?”

“Then we’ll talk.”

“We’ll  _ talk?”  _

Ignis snaps, “We will.”

“Ignis.”

Ignis rubs at the bridge of his nose and abandons his stretches. He has somewhere to be, anyway, before they leave the city. He waves his other hand, and Gladio’s greatsword dissolves into light. “Gladio,” he says tensely, “I am trying to make things right.”

“Is this the best way?”

“It’s the only way I know,” Ignis tells him, and there’s that old hopelessness tugging at him. 

Gladio says, again, “Ignis.”

“They hurt Noct, Gladio.” That’s reason enough. Gladio should understand that; Ignis knows he does. “Try as they might to forget it, there is still a war - one I’m still fighting. I know you are too.”

“And I’d never forget it,” Gladio retorts. “So what do you plan to do?”

That’s a more loaded question.

“I have something to take care of.” Ignis puts his shoes back on, then tugs his gloves back into place. “See to it that the car is ready by the time I’m back.”

“Which will be…?”

Ignis glances over his shoulder, flexing his fingers until the leather feels like a second skin, anonymous and elegant. “Thirty minutes.”

Gladio stares at him for a few long moments, considering him. For a moment, Ignis worries that Gladio might try to stop him. Instead, Gladio just clenches his fist, and Ignis’s dagger shatters out of existence in a spray of crystalline light. He says, with all the casual air of someone discussing the groceries, “I’m guessing you’ll need this.”

The dagger falls back into place in the armiger where Ignis always keeps it. Ignis dips his head in thanks. “I’ll be back,” he promises. 

“Thirty minutes, Ignis,” Gladio warns. “Thirty minutes, or I come looking for you.”

“You won’t have to,” Ignis replies, and he’s gone.

 

\---

 

“Let's turn it up a bit, shall we?”

“Fuck you.”

Ignis smiles, and he ignites his spelldaggers.

An imperial officer - the final officer, the one Ignis has been saving for last - sits tied to a chair in the middle of a shack that barely hangs to the cliffs beyond the lights of Lestallum. The winds howl through Taelpar’s gods-deep canyon, hiding any sound that might carry up to the city above. It’s the perfect place for things like this.

“You don’t have the guts to do something with those,” the officer goads. “You wouldn’t want to get your precious clothes dirty.”

“The benefits of black. You see?” Ignis taps the officer on the cheek with the flat of his blade. “Useful. Lucians are resourceful, even now. Even in Lestallum, which you presume to own.”

“We do,” the officer snarls.

Ignis shakes his head gravely. “Not so.” He trails the blade along his captive’s arm, flamebinding it once more, holding the arm down even as the officer twitches violently away from the blistering heat. “King Noctis owns Lestallum.”

“The princeling is dead.”

“Not so,” Ignis singsongs once more, and the superheated edge of the blade slices ever so carefully along the bared forearm.

The officer screams.

Ignis raises an eyebrow. “Did you like that? Let’s try it once more.” This time, he buries the blade, forcing it through the palm of the officer’s hand. This is the hand that punched Noctis. This hand deserves to be destroyed.

Another cry. The officer’s eyes screw shut and he tries to pull away, but Ignis’s grip is tight, and the spelldagger holds his hand to the chair, blistering around the flaming steel.

“Please!” he begs; outright sobbing now. “Please, please,  _ please!” _

Ignis frowns. “Is the mettle of Niflheim command so little?” Contemplatively, he plunges his flamebound dagger into the officer’s stomach. He’s more than a little pleased by the way that his captive chokes. This wound, he thinks as he slices through the viscera within, is enough to kill a man.

Slowly.

Blood sprays from trembling lips. “I hate you,” the officer snarls. “You and your  _ fucking  _ prince.”

“King,” Ignis corrects. “He stopped being prince when you killed his father.”

“That’s war.”

“So is this.” Ignis twists the blade in the officer’s stomach. “Oh, I do hope you live until nightfall,” he purrs, clutching the officer’s chin to force eye contact. “They say the plague takes people in the night.”

The officer’s blue eyes widen. “Not that,” he pleads. “Not the night. Kill me if you want.”

Ignis smiles. “Does the night concern you?”

“How could it not?”

“What could Niflheim fear in the darkness?” He’s curious now; he leans in close.

“Fucking Starscourge.” His captive’s voice is shaking with more than just the agony. “I’d die before becoming one of those  _ things.”  _

_ Those things. _ “Daemons?” Ignis asks quietly.

The officer spits in his face.

Ignis lets go and slowly draws back, never breaking eye contact. He tugs a handkerchief from his pocket and delicately wipes the bloody saliva from his cheek before neatly folding the cloth once more. He savors the way that the temporary triumph fades from the officer’s eyes when it’s clear that Ignis is entirely unfazed.

“Yes,” he decides aloud, “I think I will leave you here.”

“No,” the officer chokes, struggling against his bonds. “No, gods,  _ please-” _

Ignis pats him on the cheek. He muses, “I only wish I could be here to hear you scream.”

_ “Fuck you.” _

“Unfortunately, I have places to be.”

He stops by the door.

“I do hope we’ll meet again after tonight,” Ignis tells him. “I would relish the chance to kill you again.”

And he’s gone.

He walks the streets of Lestallum feeling ten times lighter. Even without his daggers, his skin feels electric, thrumming with magic and triumph. He’s done it. Gods, in the grand scheme of things, three lives mean nothing, and they can’t come close to paying the life debt incurred by the Fall of Insomnia, but they’re enough to apologize for the bruises on Noct’s ribs and the swelling around his eye. They’re enough.

Ignis smiles.

He has people to get back to. People he cares about. People he loves.

People he’s protecting.

They’re by the car, as promised.

“Apologies,” he murmurs, joining them once more.

Noct looks up from where he’s leaning over Prompto’s shoulder. “Something important?”

“Merely taking care of business.”

Gladio glances up from his book. He’s got that look on his face again. “Business?”

Ignis adjusts his glasses. “Ensuring a warm welcome the next time we return to Lestallum,” he replies.

Gladio blinks, slow and inscrutable. Again, that flicker of fear bubbles up in Ignis’s chest, worried that Gladio might tell, even after he has promised he wouldn’t-

“I hope that warm welcome includes separate beds,” Gladio grumbles instead. “Prompto kicks.”

Prompto makes a loud, incredulous noise. “Dude! You’ve never complained about it before!”

“I never had a choice before,” Gladio replies, flicking Prompto’s arm.

Ignis clears his throat. “Can we not begin the bickering just before our drive to Meldacio?” he asks, long-suffering and smooth.

Prompto groans.

“You’ve got, uh-” Noct reaches up and presses his index finger to Ignis’s throat. He pulls his hand away with a tiny smear of blood on the pad of his finger.

Ignis frowns. “A mosquito bite, I believe. All the more reason to get out of this heat and this city.”

Noct pulls a face. “Yikes. Let’s go.”

Prompto cheers and vaults into the Regalia. 

Ignis moves to follow suit, but Noct steps into his path. “Hey,” he says quietly. “Really. Everything okay?”

“Of course,” Ignis says, frowning down at Noct.

Noct blinks. “Promise?”

He presses a kiss to Noct’s lips, tasting iron where Noct’s lip is still split. Noct hums a little, clearly pleased by the turn of events, and Ignis indulges him for a moment longer before Prompto makes a vaguely indignant noise from the passenger seat. Ignis pulls back, smiling. “I promise,” he tells Noct, “that everything is very, very okay. Better than okay, even.”

Noct almost grins, bless him. “Good.”

“Come on,” Ignis urges. “I’d like to get out of this city.”

“Copy that,” Noct replies, and he steps back from Ignis’s space. Ignis misses him, despite the heat. Noct slides into his seat in the Regalia and stretches like a cat, settling into his favorite well-worn crease in the seat.

Ignis breathes out, slow and calm. All is right. The thick humidity of Lestallum is miserable in his lungs, but he savors the way it tastes like triumph. All the same, he’ll be pleased when he’s miles away from this place. 

They get on the road quickly enough. The Regalia purrs under his hands, eager to get back on the road. Ignis smiles fondly at her roar and pats the dashboard. Despite the long stints spent driving, he does still relish his time spent at the wheel of His Majesty’s steed. It’s comforting, in a way, like coming home.

He looks at Noct in the rearview mirror, and at Lestallum receding behind them, and he breathes a sigh of relief. He has his king. He has his revenge. He has his peace.

Noct’s wearing black, as he should.

_ Yes,  _ Ignis thinks,  _ as he should. _

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [here!](http://www.triplehelix.tumblr.com)


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